WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . Z'EV: He bangs the drum, and then some

When a couple of writers from the then-recently launched Re/Search tabloid went to visit the experimental
percussionist known as Z'EV in 1981, the conversation was esoteric
and philosophical.

The fact Z'EV banged on odd objects to make a
noise hardly entered the discussion.

Re/Search – which was founded by V.
Vale in San Francisco after his influential punk rock mag Search and
Destroy magazine folded – went on to become one of the most
interesting, left-field and provocative magazines of its era.

Its spin-off publications like the
volumes on Incredibly Strange Music, Pranks and Modern Primitives are
cornerstone reference books for anyone looking beyond the mainframe
of popular culture.

In the same issue of Re/Search where
Z'EV was interviewed – issue number 2 – there were photos of Iban
tattooing from Borneo, articles on Aboriginal music, James Blood
Ulmer (only then emerging as a distinctive guitar stylist), eroticist
Seda, a chart of German electronic musicians, something on what to do
if you get poisoned, an extract from the letters of 19th
explorer Isabelle Eberhardt, an article by a woman who lived for a
year with the Masai . . .

Re/Search was taking a wide view to
culture . . . and Z'EV was right in its sightlines.

Z'EV – born Stefan Joel Weisser in
'51 but even by the time Re/Search got to him going by other names such as Yoel, Shaoul, Uns,
Raks Works and GDG – had come to attention for his improvised
percussion pieces around San Francisco on a variety of found objects
and kinetic sculptures of his own creation.

But, as mentioned, the conversation was
about The Futurist Manifesto, Burroughs and Gysin's cut-up method of
writing which had been anticipated some 50 years previous by Dadaist
Tristan Tzara, the Kabbalah, some weird mathematical configuration
he'd worked out based on words and their attributed numerical value,
Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn, magick . . .

Aside from a short reference in the
interview's intro about Z'EV touring Europe and the US opening for
Bauhaus, playing in Britain with Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle
and Clock DVA, and something about some recordings being released,
you'd be forgiven for thinking Z'EV was some mad mystic rather than a
musician.

Of course, many who have heard his
early albums might also dispute the “musician” definition and he
himself preferred to put the emphasis on the spontaneity of
performance rather than the sound produced.

But Z'EV was very much in the vanguard
of industrial noise and found sounds, conceptual art and a kind of
audio-visual poetry-cum-performance art. Some argue – and the
evidence of a timeline seems to support it – that he anticipated
the style and attack of groups like Einsturzende Neubauten, and as a
performance artist using percussion he was certainly on a parallel
track (with very different intentions) to New Zealand's From Scratch.

He studied drumming in the early
Sixties and aside from a brief foray into jazz-rock (auditioning for
Frank Zappa's Bizarre label) he appears to have had very little to do
with mainstream popular culture.

He abandoned Judaism before his bar
mitzvah (although Z'EV is drawn from his Jewish birthname) and
explored music and cultures from the global village, mostly those
with an esoteric underpinning.

Early albums like Experimental Music
(1982) and My Favourite Things ('85) were recordings of live
performance: the former album one long piece spread over both sides
of the record; the latter shorter extracts recorded in New York,
Baltimore, Sweden and the Netherlands.

My Favourite Things was dedicated to
John Coltrane, but 'Trane fans perhaps should be given and advisory
warning.

However since the Eighties, the sound
of Z'EV has become much more accessible as the rest of the world
either caught up or outdid him in the sonic noise stakes. Ensembles
like Strike and stage productions like Stomp have made the sound of percussion mainstream
entertainment.

In the early Nineties, Z'EV found a
kindred spirit in Glenn Branca whose dense guitar orchestra sounds he
had something in common with.

These days you can find music by Z'EV on iTunes and Spotify (although not a lot given he has recorded dozens of albums
and singles) and his recent aural constructions now sound much more
accessible.

For example his album with the Italian ensemble Larsen on
the 2011 live album In V.Tro (go here for a free stream) in places has beautifully ambient
landscape but sounds almost tame . . . certainly when lined up
alongside his more aggressive, furious and demanding sounds of the
early Eighties.

Especially when he was wearing his Art
of Noise outfit and clattering the tin cans.

Got to admire the man who, on that
album My Favourite Things, suggested of one piece that it “should
be played at high volume to bring out the more subtle sonic
textures”.

And oddly enough, it was true.

For other articles in the series of strange or different characters in music, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . go here.

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